


No Rest for the Wicked

by SirLadySketch



Series: Reaction Commands -- Post KH3 reaction and fixit fics [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: ....eventually, Canon Divergence, Gen, How I WISH things went down, KH3 spoilers, fixit fics, kh3, oneshot that will eventually be its own long fic, redemption fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 21:30:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18352085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirLadySketch/pseuds/SirLadySketch
Summary: **KH3 SPOILERS**The handling of Vanitas' final scene didn't sit well with me, mostly because I resented a character with so much potential getting wasted while characters who did NOT deserve time to shine got (undeserved) redemption. So, this is scene retelling-into-canon divergence to explore how I would've had the scene go down, and what (I think) he deserved.Currently a oneshot.





	No Rest for the Wicked

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, Asia. :p

The ancient keys rained down on broken stones in a shower of dull, metallic thuds before they shattered into dust. Vanitas slowly stirred where he’d landed, assessing the situation as he regained consciousness. There was the familiar ache of broken bones and torn flesh, but the pain was a muted, detached thing, something he could ignore for now.

The brown-haired brat had gotten lucky with his flagpole weapon, the cloth wrapping around his helmet and and consequently blinding him to Ventus’ attack from behind. He’d been _weak_ surprised, knocked from his perch atop the keys, and too stunned to react before falling to the earth below. They’d pay for that.

His body twitched, muscles coming alive again as the stupor began to wear off, and he tested out his limbs, trying to assess damage. He could feel the sting of a hundred little cuts all over his body, but they were small, inconsequential injuries he could ignore. There were cracks in his armor, the metal plate turned inwards and crushing his ribs, so breathing would be a painful chore for the foreseeable future. Still, he’d survive. He’d taken more damage in the past, and dealt with worse.

He began to reevaluate this assumption as he began to stand and pain lanced through the heady flow of Darkness that had numbed his injuries thus far. Ven’s blow had done more than crack his armor; as he staggered to his feet, he felt the heat of blood as it pulsed out. The wound was deep, down to the bone, with slivers of armor curled into the flesh, keeping effectively it open.

As he looked up again, little stars of light flitted across his vision, but he managed to stay upright. The dust of the broken keyblades was blowing away, but there was a darkness filling his vision as well. For a moment, he thought he might be blacking out again, but a disinterested part of him realized that those were particles of darkness seeping into the air around him. He was starting to _fade_.  

He laughed-- he couldn’t help it. For all his training, all his strength, a kid with a glorified oar and his damned narcoleptic _brother_ had managed to slip beneath his defenses. The laugh turned into an agonizing cough, and the force of his breath shattered part of his helmet away.

“Your face!” Sora gasped, and Vanitas laughed through another wave of pain, turning to face his twin. This _was_ the first time they’d come face to face unmasked, wasn’t it?

“I’m the piece of Ventus that was taken away.” Vanitas explained through gritted teeth. The boy knew this, surely? What the hell had they been talking about during their mission briefs? Hadn’t Ventus mentioned him, even in passing? Or had Ventus thought his existence so insignificant that he wasn’t worth the breath? Somehow, that thought hurt more than the wound that had him bleeding out into the dust.

“And you’re the piece Ventus needed to be whole again. So… why shouldn’t you and I look exactly the same?” He laughed again, seeing the boy flinch at the comparison. “You define me, Sora, the same way that Ventus does. We are brothers who, together, make a greater whole.”

His ‘brother’ winced at that phrasing, but Sora clenched his fists, glaring at him. Still, Vanitas had no doubt there was fear there, too. Maybe the boy looked at him and recognized what he might have become had the firebrand wielder not swooped in to his rescue. Maybe Sora looked at him and saw himself dying. After all, they wore the same face, shared the same heart, at least for a time. Memento Mori could be a bitch.

“Then why won’t you stand by our side?” Sora asked, still not getting it. “Instead of with Darkness?”

“Because I _am_ darkness.” Couldn’t the boy see the swirling shadows around him? He was literally fading into the black abyss, returning from whence he came, and _still_ the boy didn’t get it. “And I do stand by your side. I’m the shadow that you cast. How much closer could I be?”

“But I didn’t--” Sora began, but Ven cut him off with a hand.

“But I didn’t ask for this,” Ven finished for him. He looked _angry_ somehow, as though it was Vanitas’ fault that everything had come to this. And, to be fair, maybe it was. Hadn’t they been working towards this moment? Hadn’t everything they’d done, every choice they’d made been building to this?

“To be sifted apart, nice and neat.” Ventus shook his head. “We should be free to choose. Not just light, not just darkness. We decide what we are.”

A pretty sentiment, that. But foolish, nevertheless.

“But… Ventus, I _did_ decide who I am. You see?” He spread out his arms, letting them see what he was. What he had _become_ , despite everyone and everything fighting against him.

The light _burned_. Every encounter he’d had with Ventus’ friends had brought him nothing but pain, their blazing self-righteousness blinding them to anything beyond their own perception of the truth. But the brighter they burned, the darker their shadows. He’d been tempered in Van’s wake; each wound that didn’t kill him, each blow that struck him down only made him stronger the next time he stood. He’d done it all on his own, embracing the power that lay within and adapting to his lot in life so that he could survive another day. Darkness meant power.

“And what you are is darkness?”

Vanitas smiled. “What I am is darkness.”

“Okay.” Ventus agreed, and Vanitas laughed. He was _strong._

“How is that okay?” Sora yelled, his voice reaching a higher pitch with tension. “Vanitas!”

Vanitas focused his fading sights on this young keyblade wielder, no more than a child, really. His fear and sorrow made him weak--it was obvious. Who cried over a fallen enemy? How was it possible for the Light to breed such weakness into its warriors-- and yet they survived, even as he faded away?

A part of him wonder if Sora was what he might have become, had he been able to stand in the light a little longer, to feel the sun on his skin and the wind through his hair. If _he_ had been the one bequeathed to Eraqus and Ven’s friends. If he’d been given any glimmer of light and kindness during the entirety of his existence, would he have become Sora?

Could you regret a life you never lived?

He forced out a laugh before an unversed could spill from his lips. Nothing would kill an exit like vomiting up a monster of envy right before he kicked the bucket.

“That’s stupid!”

Even Ven seemed taken aback by the boy’s words, and while Vanitas wasn’t surprised by the sentiment, he was thrown by the vehemence. He squinted at Sora through his fading vision, beginning to sway in place as the darkness took hold. He bit his lip as another wave of pain rolled through him, and he tasted blood, but a little longer. He could hold on a little longer. He was strong.

“What?” he coughed out. It was getting too hard to laugh now.

“I said that’s stupid,” Sora repeated. He stepped forward and Vanitas half-expected to see a keyblade manifest in his hand, ready to strike him down. “You think that you can just say something like that and then just disappear? Hearts are more than just darkness and just light. There’s more to _you_ than that, Vanitas!”

Sora turned to Ventus and gave him a beseeching look. “You can’t be alright with this, Ven! It’s not ‘okay’!”

“I’m not.” Ven shook his head and crossed his arms. His shoulders slumped and he focused somewhere on the ground between them, unable to look Van in the eye. “It’s not. I think he’s wrong, but Sora, it’s his decision. Maybe the first one he’s ever been able to make of his own accord. Should I deny him that right?”

Vanitas managed another laugh at that. The movement caused blood to trickle down his cheeks, but he didn’t have the energy to wipe it away. Maybe it would remind them how hard he fought, and how he didn’t back down, even at the end. The laugh turned into a cough, and the area around them grew dimmer by the second, but Sora and Ven stood out like the beacons of Light they were, despite the world fading around them.

“Save your pity for someone who wants it, _little brother_ ,” he ground out. “Ask Ventus, he knows. I know my own heart, and I know its worth.”

Sora took another step forward, but Ven held out his hand again to stop him.

“He’s right, I _do_ know his heart.” Ventus turned, at last, to focus on him, and Vanitas was surprised to find tears in his eyes. “I know you.”

Vanitas dropped to one knee, the sheer weight of his continued existence beginning to wear him down at last. He’d been strong for so long, but this continued charade was wearing his patience down to his very soul. Or maybe it was the broken ribs and blood loss. Hard to tell, really.

He blinked, and then suddenly Ventus was _right there_ , kneeling in front of him, holding him up.

“You hurt me,” Ventus said, and Vanitas coughed out a bloody laugh. He hadn’t expected the oh-so-sweet Ven to kick him while he was down. Although perhaps it would be considered a mercy killing, Ven destroying a beast who’d bitten him one too many times. He braced himself, but the final blow never came.

“You hurt me, you hurt my friends. You overpowered me and forced me to do terrible things,” Ven whined like the weakling that he was. “I can’t forgive you for what you did to me, not yet. I don’t know if I _can_.”

“So end it, then,” Vanitas hissed, and tried not to flinch at the heat of Ven’s hand on his shoulder.

“I probably should,” Ven agreed, and Vanitas snorted at Sora’s startled gasp. But Ven’s hand on his shoulder stayed where it was, the heat soaking into his skin despite the armor. “But when we were together as one, I saw into _your_ heart, too. Do you know what I saw?”

“You’re probably going to tell me whether I want to know or not.”

“We’re the same,” Ven said. “My heart is no different than yours. I think you know it, too. If you’d been given a chance to choose your own path, things might’ve turned out differently.”

“ _I chose this_ ,” Vanitas hissed, and bowed his head as another throb of pain rippled through his body. He bowed his head and the blood dripped onto the dirt in front of him. It was strange, though, to see that he’d already faded so much that even his blood had lost its coloring, falling to the ground in clear, broken drops.

“I know you did,” Ven said, and his voice was warm, even as he slid his arm under Vanitas’ to ease him down onto his back. “But choosing things when there’s only one option isn’t really choosing at all, is it? Especially when you’re in the heat of the moment and your options seem limited.”

“What’re you--” Sora started to interrupt, but stopped as Ven began to glow with a pale sheen of golden light. Something in the back of Vanitas’ memories began to stir at the familiar sensation, but his thoughts were too slow to react as his body fought with the effort to remain conscious in these final moments.

“I’m sorry,” Ven was saying through the fog. “It’s not fair to take away your choice again, to make this decision for you, and I hope you understand that I don’t want this, but it’s for the best. I want you to do what I’ve always done when I had a big decision to make: I want you to--”

“You can’t--” Vanitas began, desperately trying to claw his way back into consciousness to resist. He managed to grab Ven’s collar, something physical to hold on to, but Ven spoke over his resistance.

“-- _sleep on it._ ”

The spell took hold and weak as he was, he had no strength to resist. The words washed over him in a blanket of warm comfort, closing his eyes at last. Vanitas fell into sleep, and knew no more.

\----

Sora watched as Ven carefully laid Vanitas’ body on the ground, going so far as to remove his jacket to form a makeshift pillow on the ground. When Vanitas’ helmet came off completely, Sora fought back a shudder to see his own face framed by white hair corrupted with darkness. If Riku, Lea, and the king hadn’t come, it could easily have been him laying on the ground.

Ventus knelt by the body, head bowed, and Sora took a tentative step forward. They still had fights to finish, but he hated to interrupt this moment that had clearly taken its toll on Ven. Then Ven sighed and stood, giving Vanitas one final look before turning and walking back towards Sora.

“Is he…?” Sora started, but Ven shook his head.

“He’s sleeping.” Ven sounded exhausted, although whether it was the fight catching up to him, or the effort the spell had cost him was unclear.  

“So what now?” Sora asked, and Ven shrugged, looking back at his ‘brother’ again.

“For now, he’ll sleep and stay asleep,” he said. “We have to focus on the tasks at hand and he’ll be fine where he is for now. Later, though… I’ll take him back to Yen Sid’s.”

“You think Master Yen Sid will know how to help him?” Sora asked, looking over at the sleeping figure again.

“He won’t accept help from anyone,” Ven said. “He doesn’t think he deserves it. And maybe he’s right, maybe I’m being stupid and he doesn’t deserve another chance. But Yen Sid can help me try to reach him, the same way your friend Riku helped you as you slept. I hate that I took his last choice from him, and I hope he can forgive me for it, one day.”

“But…” Sora trailed off, unsure of how to delicately put into words his next question. _Why help him when he hurt you so badly? How do you know you can trust him to change his ways? What will you do if he chooses Darkness again?_

“Do you want to rest for a bit longer? I can scout ahead to see where Terra’s gone, and me and Aqua can hold him til you’re ready,” he asked instead.

“I’m fine,” Ven replied, a small smile back on his face. He gave a final look back at Vanitas before he started off in the direction of their next fight. “I need to help them, as much for myself than anyone else. You know what they say-- there’s no rest for the wicked.”

**Author's Note:**

> My intention to eventually finish a full redemption fic for Vanitas, but I'm a bit too tied up with other projects to give him the full story he deserves. I have a 50k+ fic planned and roughly plotted out, but I have another 200k fic, _The Oathkeeper's Legacy,_ which is fully outlined and already in progress. 
> 
> That said, if anyone feels inspired by this and wants to link back to it when you post your work, please feel free to do so. <3
> 
> Thanks for reading, guys!


End file.
